“But I did feel it,” Toby insisted.
“What did it feel like?” Lily asked.
“Like . . . like I was piano wires and someone plucked all of me at the same time.”
Nausea gripped Rule’s gut. “I see.” He could make sure his fear didn’t show, but it was just as well Toby’s nose still functioned at human levels. “Well, the Leidolf Rhej is a healer.”
“Like Nettie?”
“Yes, though trained in a different tradition. We’ll have her take a look at you, see if you’re closer than I think.”
Lily looked at him sharply. “You’re still planning to go?”
“Yes.” God, yes—though he’d be calling Nettie, too. He trusted the Leidolf Rhej, but wanted his own clan’s healer to look at his son. “Today, I think. All else aside, it would be best to have Toby away from whatever or whoever is turning random people into killers.”
Her reaction was a sigh so faint even his hearing barely picked it up. She looked at Toby. “Then I’d better talk to you now, if it’s okay with your grandmother. I’d like to hear what you know about Franklin Hodge.” She glanced up at the woman still in the kitchen. “You, too, Mrs. Asteglio.”
SIXTEEN
RANDOM killers. That’s what Rule had called them, but Lily wasn’t convinced Meacham and Hodge were truly random. There must be something connecting them, some commonality.
Probably some person. She wasn’t discounting Cullen’s theory about an out-realm creature being responsible, but that seemed more of a stretch than a human agent who’d stumbled across a previously unknown ability or ritual.
As she stepped out on the porch, she was hoping hard that Rule’s nose would turn up that connection, human or otherwise.
“I need to talk to Brown a minute,” she said to Rule as he closed the door behind them. The ERT techs were busy combing through Mrs. Asteglio’s grass, but almost everyone else had left. Nathan Brown stood in the next-door neighbor’s driveway, talking to a city cop. “He’s the most senior agent. Before I do, though, what’s worrying you about Toby?”
“Not now. Not here.”
She considered him. His eyes were hard, heavy-lidded—which meant he intended to shut her out. Or maybe he was shutting something else out. But what? Worry squeezed her like a boa softening up dinner, only she didn’t know what she needed to worry about. “All right. But I know something’s wrong.”
“Possibly wrong. Maybe. And I can’t discuss it here.”
Here, with all these pesky humans around . . . Well, she could understand that. “Okay. Meet me at Hodge’s place?”
His smile was small. “Certainly. I’ll Change into something more furry for the occasion.”
She headed for the neighbor’s drive. Nathan Brown was short, chubby, and pale, a Pillsbury Doughboy of a man with luxuriant hair the color of pecans and an oversize mustache. He had twenty-two years on the job, and he didn’t like her.
Lily didn’t assume his dislike arose from prejudice. It might, but she suspected his resentment was more generic. He was regular FBI; she was Unit. The Turning had led Congress to put a lot of authority into the hands of Unit agents. People like Brown, with all the experience and seniority Lily lacked, didn’t always appreciate being seconded to a newcomer. Especially one as young as Lily.
Tough. She motioned for him to step aside from the young officer he’d been talking with. He scowled, but did, joining her near the street. “You’ve got the city cops doing the knock-on-doors?”
“Partnered with our people, yeah. You got a problem with that?”
“No, it’s a good idea. People might be more comfortable, more forthcoming, with those they see as their own. I’m going to check out Hodge’s house before I let the ERT in. Anything I need to know before I do that?”
“Guess you don’t worry much about contaminating a scene.”
“I’ll take precautions. I need to know if there are magical traces in his house. He wasn’t Gifted himself, so anything I find along those lines could be meaningful.” She paused a beat. “Rule will be checking the place for scents, too.”
Brown’s gaze flickered to Rule, who was headed down the street for the single-story house on the corner. “You’re kidding me, right? You don’t really plan to walk your doggie around the house.”
“The attorney general will be formally issuing a new policy on scent next week. I’m anticipating it.”
His eyebrows lifted in exaggerated surprise. “Friend of yours, the AG? He keeps you posted on things?”
“No. He is friendly with my boss, and Ruben keeps me posted. As I was saying, the new policy will specifically allow the use of witnesses who are able to distinguish scents with great acuity.”
“Great acuity. Huh.” He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out an opened package of gum. “Guess you are going to walk your doggie around the house.”
Lily drummed her fingers on her thigh. “Okay. I don’t need to know if you dislike me because I’m Unit, or because I’m Gifted, or if I just look like your ex-girlfriend. I do need to know if that dislike will interfere with you doing the job.”
Something flashed in his eyes—anger, maybe, or surprise. Hard to say when his scowl didn’t change. “I always do the job, ma’am. You don’t have to worry about that.” He held out the gum. “Want some? No? You’re probably wondering why the office sent you a son of a bitch with a lousy attitude who doesn’t know shit about magic, and doesn’t much care for those who do.”
“I’m hoping you do know shit about investigating.”
“I do.” He nodded. “I do. But what you really need me for is all these goddamned cops littering the landscape. We’ve got county cops from the previous case, city cops with this one, and no goddamn guarantee any of them will tell us one word more than they have to. But you lucked out. I’m a goddamned genius at keeping things straight with the goddammed locals.”
“Must be your inherent charm and charisma.”
“That’d be it. Now, I’ve got work to do, so unless you need me to hold your hand—”
“Go. Please.” She did, too.
Hodge’s house was a small, single-story frame structure set on a large, unfenced corner lot. There was a lovely mix of annuals, perennials, and small shrubs in the beds flanking the sidewalk that bisected the front yard; the grass was lush. She didn’t see Rule.
He must have decided to check out the yard. She headed for the side of the house, where a large, bushy cedar blocked the view.
His clothes were there, left in the dirt. Automatically she picked them up and folded them, then kept going to the back of the house. As soon as she rounded the corner, she saw him wiggling under the partly closed door of a detached garage. He stood, shook himself, and trotted toward her.
Rule made a very large, very beautiful wolf. His fur was a black and silver mix, heavy on the silver and palest on his face, where his eyes were rimmed in black like an Egyptian houri.
Good, so good, to see you like this.
The thought fluttered across her mind like a breath of smoke tattered by the air it rode—there; then wisp; then gone. But the place it came from wasn’t gone. Mostly she couldn’t touch those memories, but the part of her that had been through hell with Rule, knowing him only as wolf, was still there. Still her.
Lily stopped moving and found that a smile had settled on her face. Rule came to her and pushed his nose against her hand. She grinned.